When sales are up, that’s a good thing — but if you don’t know exactly which products are behind those sales, it’s hard to keep that momentum going.
While most point of sale (POS) systems have some form of sales reporting, many only show total sales volume, as opposed to the performance of specific products. And even if you can look at individual product sales, the process can be tedious.
That’s where automated product ranking comes in. Product ranking features, like those in Cigars POS, are designed to help tobacco shop owners simplify merchandise planning, avoid unnecessary spending, and better understand their customers’ preferences.
If you’re thinking about updating or switching to a new POS system, product ranking should be on your list of must-have features.
Here’s why.
Automated product ranking is a feature that uses sales data from the last 30 days to assign a rank from A to D to your entire inventory. A rank represents products that have a high sales volume, and D rank represents products that haven’t sold at all.
These ranks are also assigned colors that appear at checkout. This helps you see product performance at a glance without needing to pull data into an Excel report or spend hours reviewing sales histories for individual items.
To be more specific:
B rank: Middle 60% of items sold
Stores that sell a high volume of staples or low-value items might have different criteria for healthy sales numbers than a specialty cigar store that sells higher-margin items less frequently.
That’s why the specific percentages that define A–C ranking, as well as the evaluation period (30 days, by default), can be adjusted based on your needs.
Automated ranking gives you a solid overview of what’s selling (and what’s not), but how do tobacco store owners actually use it on a day-to-day basis? And why is it a must-have?
Here are some common use cases.
Tobacco stores naturally have seasonal swings in demand — but when you look at it in the context of total sales, it’s hard to know which specific products trend at different times of the year.
Examining a list of sales by month and then sorting by product rank helps you identify outliers that indicate seasonal trends. For example, you might find that a Romeo y Julieta cigar that’s a B or C rank most of the year consistently jumps to an A in the summer months.
As opposed to simply knowing that cigars as a whole sell more in the summer, which isn’t particularly useful information, understanding that a specific cigar or brand does better might prompt you to prepare for next year with a larger order.
Related Read: 6 Best Practices for Tobacco Shop Inventory Management
When you’re caught up managing employees, serving customers, and keeping your store safe, you might not have time to keep track of exactly which products are and aren’t selling.
The result? Many tobacco store owners put in purchase orders (POs) based on what typically sells, not what’s actually selling — this can lead to reorders of unpopular items that end up collecting dust.
Automated ranking isn’t just used in reports, but also in the vendor management features of your POS — when you generate a PO, you can see the item rank as well as the cost and quantity. Ideally, you want your POs to be mostly full of A- and B-ranked items — this means you’re reordering items that are popular and selling well.
Though you might have a few C-ranked items on order because they’re higher-margin, or to prepare for a seasonal need or upcoming event, you should generally remove any D-rank products from your orders.
If you have a purchase order with D products, it means you’re reordering an item that’s considered dead stock — a waste of money and storage space.
When you carry thousands of unique SKUs, the idea of putting more effort into your inventory can feel daunting. But taking time to add custom tags to your stock helps you hone your product selection even further.
Custom tags are extra information you can add to inventory items and then pull into reporting. For example, you can add things like:
Combined with ranking information, you can get detailed information on the types of products your customers respond to. Say you own a cigar lounge — when you filter down this month’s sales to A-ranked items, you see that the majority of those items were hand-rolled cigars from South America.
This kind of insight can indicate that it’s time to expand your selection with similar products. Plus, you can use the same filters to find products that are a dud or moving slower than expected.
Sometimes, a slower-moving item isn’t inherently unpopular — it just needs a nudge in the right direction. Automated ranking isn’t only useful for merchandise planning and correcting mistakes, it also reveals potential promotional opportunities!
Sure, your A items are your bestsellers — but that doesn’t mean you can’t earn money on B, C, and even D product ranks. Instead, a lower rank simply means it might be time to run a promotional sale, set up a buy one, get one (BOGO) offer, or create a product bundle.
In this example, two cigars are rung up and show up as green (A rank) and purple (B rank).
You can also filter your customer loyalty data down to customers who’ve bought similar items recently to make your promotions pop. Here are some ideas to get you started:
The product rank color coding shows up on screen as items are scanned, helping you create upselling opportunities right at the register. If you spot an Aladino that’s highlighted red, you can offer the customer a 20% discount if they buy more than two.
Perhaps most importantly, having product rankings at your fingertips gives you a deep understanding of the items that contribute the most to your store’s success (both in the short and long term).
Regularly reviewing your ranked items gives you a good idea of the types of products your customers love the most. As you phase out some products and introduce new ones, your system measures the effectiveness of your changes and assigns you an inventory grade.
This grade tells you how well your overall inventory is selling. The higher the percentage, the more items are in those healthy A and B ranks — in other words, a high percentage means you’re stocking your shelves with items that your customers are happy to buy.
Related Read: Inventory List for Tobacco Store Startup: 8 Top Products
Automated ranking is a useful tool that helps you cut down operating costs and make more confident inventory choices — and it’s yet another reason why having an industry-specific POS system can give you a leg up on the competition.
Want to see Cigars POS’ auto ranking feature in action?
Schedule a personalized demo with our product team today to see it for yourself, along with other features like our convenient auto invoicing, built-in product database, customer loyalty, and more.